Blue Origin unveils a third stage and a new booster engine for New Glenn
From the Space digest for Nov 5, 2026
What happened: Blue Origin has unveiled two new pieces of New Glenn hardware: GS3, a third stage aimed at direct injection into geostationary orbit and Earth-escape trajectories, and Northstar, a new booster engine. GS3, powered by Blue Origin's BE-7 engine with vacuum performance quoted above 460 seconds, is listed at up to 8 metric tonnes to geostationary orbit and 10 tonnes to trans-lunar injection on the current 7-engine vehicle, rising to 14 and 20 tonnes on the larger 9×4 variant, and is already under contract for a cis-lunar mission with a government customer to launch in 2028. Its composite liquid-hydrogen tank has completed pressurization testing at Launch Site One, holding full operating pressure for 2.5 hours and 150% of it for 10 minutes. Northstar, burning liquid oxygen and liquefied natural gas, is rated at 715,000 pounds of thrust — up from 640,000 for the BE-4 — with more than 65% of the engine additively manufactured and final assembly described as taking under a day; CEO Dave Limp confirmed the engine in his own statement.
What's genuinely new: the stage, the engine, their specifications and the booked 2028 cis-lunar mission are all made public for the first time — Northstar becomes Blue Origin's second booster engine alongside the BE-4, and the company says it expects the GS3 tank to be the first composite liquid-hydrogen tank flown in space. The announcement lands alongside the rebuilt-pad push toward flight early in 2027.
Watch: development testing turning into flight hardware, the 2028 cis-lunar mission under contract, and whether the thrust and manufacturability claims hold against the flying BE-4 fleet.
Links: NASASpaceflight · The Seattle Times (Bloomberg) · Nov 5, 3:51 PM ET